Chapter 17 — The Sorcerer And The Rank-Two Ability Exam (4)

The Specter Realm Gate, at last.

The special-ops unit of the Spell Army stood drawn up around the Gate in a deliberate formation, ringing it in.
They wore the unit’s special uniform, the same men, in short, that Yun Jubaek had led at the previous Rank-Three exam.

It was no mere cordon.
The combined spiritual power of every man stood as a single sorcerous array, an art shaped to keep the Specter Realm Gate from swelling any larger and from collapsing outright.
He could not say for certain, but among the ranks of that array there must have been a goodly number of Barrier-Masters and array-masters posted.

“Salute, sir! You’ve arrived, Lt. Colonel.”
“Where is the Lt. General?”
“He went in alone, ahead of us. He instructed us to open the Specter Realm Gate for your associates once they arrived. He added, however, that the situation has changed from what was planned, and that whether they go in is for them to choose…”
“What? You mean he isn’t holding the array out here with us, he means for us to go in? Then what about us?”

Yun Jubaek glanced back at his party in plain bewilderment as he asked it.
The officer, who bore a captain’s cap-insignia and a commander’s epaulet, answered with a troubled face.

“We have been instructed to keep controlling the array, so that the Gate does not collapse early. He said the Lt. Colonel must serve as the keystone of the array…”
“So what you’re telling me is that only these people go inside, right now? Tch… Uncle, really.”

The officer’s words drove Yun Jubaek’s expression to incredulity.
His eyes shifted to the Specter Realm Gate, and a low note of breath escaped him.

“Even with sorcery suppressing it, it’s only grown larger… And ‘Backflow’ isn’t a word one can joke about.”

Meanwhile, Shin Hweein had been studying the same thing since before any of this began.
No one had forced the Gate open, and yet there it was, a vast Gate whirling pitch-black and bleeding an ominous force into the air around it.
It was a sight beyond words.

‘The flow of yokai aura is unstable, ready to burst out at any moment, and inside, the throb of something enormous. Rank Four large-scale, at the least. This is past even a Rank-One exam, never mind a Rank-Two.’

And even at this very moment it was expanding fast, leaking that baleful force.
There was no telling how long it could hold.
Since the Eight Pure-Blood Houses had first set down their roots and put forth their branches across the Aeshin land, no Specter Realm Gate of this scale had ever caused trouble within their jurisdictions.
Left unattended now, with no measure taken, by tomorrow, no, by tonight even, the yokai aura piled up beyond this Gate could go into overrun and turn this whole area, lock and stock, into an Other Realm.
Nothing about it would be strange.
Zone 3 it might be, but the Capital was still the Capital.
A step or two inward and one came upon a city where men lived.
The thought of all those people who could be sacrificed sent a chill clear through him.

‘A Night of Ghosts, in the heart of the Capital, in the twenty-first century? It’s not even funny…’

The Night of Ghosts.
When the pressure upon a Specter Realm Gate exceeded its limit and the Gate weakened, the strongest yokai among those gathered would take the lead and break the Gate clean through.
The shock half-synchronized the surrounding land with the Specter Realm, and the present world, invaded by phantasm, could not hold its form and warped.
One who could not handle spiritual power could not so much as move properly in such a place, and would have the very life-breath sucked out of him.
The yokai that came bursting out of the Specter Realm fed upon the victims to swell their power, and turned the dead into new yokai to join their procession.
It became, indeed, a day on which ghosts took possession of the world above.
The longer it was left to itself, the greater the scale it built, gradually eroding the present world and turning it into the Specter Realm, until at last it became all but impossible to stop.

‘In Hwa they call it Hyakki Yakou (the Night-Procession of a Hundred Ghosts); in the West they call it the Wild Hunt. Halloween, the Night of Walpurgis, these too were once oral traditions and rites passed down by humans who had witnessed the same calamity, that they might guard against it; only over time were other meanings layered on, until they decayed into mere festivals.’

In the days before Aeshin was founded, the boundary between the present world and the Specter Realm had been even less distinct than this, they said.
And so one might not infrequently have beheld yokai, clad in the breath of the Specter Realm, careering across the ground and through the low air.

So too with the Night of Ghosts, which had settled into one of Aeshin’s traditional festivals.
The abstaining from going out of doors, the neoltwigi and the lighting of fires to drive off ghosts, every part of it had been instituted to remember the calamity and to keep its warning alive.
It was only since the founding of Aeshin that, thanks to the Eight Pure-Blood Houses laboring by every means to forestall the Night of Ghosts, its original meaning had faded, until at length it remained only as a traditional observance performed on the sixteenth day of the first lunar month.

“—I shall go in.”

It was not, perhaps, for sorcerers who must defend Aeshin; but for the common folk who lived untouched by sorcery and yokai, there was no need to know the true meaning of the Night of Ghosts.
It was enough that the Night of Ghosts remain to them a faintly tiresome, dull traditional observance.
To keep it so was the duty of the Eight Pure-Blood Houses, the duty of a sorcerer.

“If we don’t hurry, it would not be strange were the Night of Ghosts to break this very night.”
“No, wait a moment.”

Shin Hweein stepped abruptly forward, and Yun Jubaek startled and put out a hand.
The squad-members, every one of them a sub-lieutenant or above by their insignia, rushed in a flurry to block his path, and Yun Jubaek let out a long sigh and tried to talk him round.

“I do not know what the Lt. General told you when he called you out here, but the inside is altogether too dangerous. Just an hour or two ago it was not at this pitch. No matter how I turn it over, this is no ordinary trouble.”
“All the more reason to hurry.”
“That is…”

Sympathetic though he was to Shin Hweein, to let them go in like this would be to make himself their indirect murderer, would it not?
And so Yun Jubaek stood there, brow furrowed, turning the thought over.

“Shin Hae, let us go.”
“Ah.”
“My lady?!”
“Whoa…”

With a stride forward, Ham Seoyeon took hold of one of Shin Hweein’s hands.
Unlike Shin Hae, a suspicious masked sorcerer, they could not, after all, bar a direct-line daughter of the Ham House, and the squad-members fell back to either side.

“Wait, your formation, you must hold it…!”
“Mr. Yun Jubaek.”

Ham Seoyeon turned to face Yun Jubaek, who was raising his voice, and spoke.

“Should we not come back, it would be best if you sent word to the Seo House and the Shin House as well, that they might prepare for the Night of Ghosts. Of course, Uncle Jinseong is no ordinary strong man either, so it should be no real trouble, but just in case, you understand.”
“…Haa. How many hours should I wait before we move?”

It was natural enough for Yun Jubaek to balk at that request.
If the three Houses began to move on such a scale, it would amount to no less than advertising that something grave had taken place in the Capital.
And what was more, if the strength of the three Houses were drawn away from the Capital’s center, Zone Zero and Zone One would become correspondingly unstable, and the matter could not be carried out so easily.

“A moment.”

Because the flow of time inside the Specter Realm could be twisted, Ham Seoyeon could not give a ready answer.
Just then Shin Hweein raised one finger and laid it against the fox-ornament fitted to the head of his staff.
The bejeweled fox opened its mouth as though alive and nipped lightly at his fingertip, and the drop of blood that fell from the wound gathered in midair and shaped itself into a small jewel.

“That power, surely not…”
“I have not become a vampire, so be at ease. There. When this jewel breaks, that is the signal.”

Yun Jubaek caught the floating jewel in one hand and inspected it with his own spiritual power, then turned an incredulous look upon him.

“Don’t tell me you could do something like this from the very first time we met?”
“Who can say. We shall return.”
“Off you go, then.”

Yun Juna likewise bowed her head to Yun Jubaek and followed the other two.
When she had come close to them she saw that Ham Seoyeon was still holding one of Shin Hweein’s hands, and remarked on it.

“How long do you mean to keep holding his hand?”
“What’s the harm? We’re friends.”

At Ham Seoyeon’s reply Yun Juna gave a snort.

“You’re not still in primary school, are you?”
“It’s you who shouldn’t be teasing me over a thing like that, you’re not in primary school either—”
“So once you start primary school, friends can’t hold each other’s hands anymore?”

Shin Hweein, who because of his sickly body had never once set foot in any educational institution in his life, put the question in earnest, and Ham Seoyeon and Yun Juna’s bickering mouths clapped shut at once.

“You…”
“Sorry.”

The moment after, Ham Seoyeon shot Yun Juna a look like a vengeful ghost, and she, of all people, found nothing to say in reply and meekly bowed her head.
Shin Hweein tilted his head and asked,

“Was she in the wrong?”
“Naturally. What has age got to do with friends holding hands?”

Ham Seoyeon answered firmly and laced her fingers through his entirely.

“From now on we ought to walk holding hands a great deal.”
“My apologies. …Will you not hold mine as well?”
“That one, no. We aren’t friends yet.”
“…”

Shin Hweein’s reply was firmer than she had expected, and Yun Juna’s spirits visibly sagged.
Ham Seoyeon threw her a look of serves you right, tugged him along, and crossed through the Specter Realm Gate.

“Ah…”
“…It’s bad.”

The two hands came naturally apart.
It might have been because of the yokai aura that choked the breath even out of them, who were of at least Rank-Two caliber.
Or it might have been the corpses of yokai strewn on every side.

“Master Shin Hae, then, when we become friends in the future, will you also— ah.”

Yun Juna, who had been clinging stubbornly to the word friend even as they crossed into the Specter Realm, took one look around and shut her mouth.

“The Lt. General…”
“You’re here.”

The word Lt. General was barely out when Yun Jinseong appeared before them.
Unlike the filthy state of the corpses scattered around him, not a single drop of blood, not a single mote of dust, clung to his body.

“There is something I ought to apologize for first. A few days ago a Specter Realm Gate was discovered, and word came that it had grown to a Rank-Five medium scale. I thought it just right for testing those who excel beyond their peers, and so I called for you. Who could have known it would turn out like this when I came to look today?”
“Had you foreseen this state of affairs, you would have asked the head of the Yun House for aid, not us. I understand.”
“In truth, even if you chose not to come in, I had no intention of blaming you for it. Nor have I any standing to blame you, having failed to manage the Gates of the Capital properly.”

Shin Hweein met Yun Jinseong’s gaze steadily and answered with composure,

“If I had refused the summons from the outset, well and good. But having seen this, there can be no question of running.”
“You may have left the House, but the pride of the Eight Pure-Blood Houses, that you have not cast away. Splendid.”

Yun Jinseong fell silent for a moment, then turned to look behind him and spread one hand.
A single jade ring he wore began to give off a bright light, lines of blood traced themselves across his palm and formed a definite array.
The next moment that array spun powerfully, refining high-purity spiritual power, and shot it out in a perfectly straight beam like a ray of light.
And he swept it left to right as though pushing it forward, raking the surrounding area with that beam.

“Ha.”
“As you can see…”

Still at some distance, Shin Hweein could only sense it dimly through his spirit-eye, but as Yun Jinseong’s attack swept through, vast quantities of yokai-force readings flickered out at once, and only then could he grasp how absurdly many yokai had been lying beyond.
Even a Rank-Four Specter Realm Gate did not, of course, produce only high-grade yokai, but among the slaughtered ranks were plenty fit to be called Rank-Six or even Rank-Seven, and that should give one some measure of how powerful a sorcerer Yun Jinseong was.

“It is an extremely dangerous situation. Had I entered even a little later, the Gate would have collapsed. The Capital came within a hair’s breadth of meeting the Night of Ghosts for the first time in centuries.”
“And to close the Gate—”
“That, yes, is impossible. A Gate of this magnitude cannot be closed so simply, and besides, the overseer would not stand by and watch.”
“The overseer… have you found the wretch?”

Unlike the Other Realms produced by a particular individual, a Specter Realm Gate often came into being without any special cause, or because some overlap of fate had occurred between the Specter Realm and the present world.
In most stretches of the Specter Realm, however, there was sure to be a yokai who acted as overseer over the surrounding area, and creatures of that kind would not let pass a moment of instability in a Gate like this.
They would come tearing to it and try, without fail, to smash the Gate down.
And there were many yokai too who, having deliberately sought out a seam between the present world and theirs, would gather other yokai to it in order to open it, eating away at the Gate.
The present case, in which expansion and collapse were trying to occur abnormally fast, was very likely such an instance.

“The wretch seems still to be out and about, gathering his band. Not those low spirits, a proper band. When the fight breaks out, I shall take him. Until then, I leave whatever band he has gathered by that time to you.”
“I shall do my utmost.”

‘A “proper band”…’

Just how strong the things would be that Yun Jinseong, who treated Rank-Six yokai as mere low spirits, was willing to call yokai, he did not even want to imagine.
But it had been Shin Hweein himself who had chosen to fight.
He could not, at this point, draw back.

“More to the point, the reason I have been ranging around is not the overseer, but that no matter how I turn it over, I feel something off about this Gate.”
“The Gate…?”

Even as he answered, Shin Hweein went stiff in a single instant.
A sorcery that worked directly upon a Specter Realm Gate?

“Has something occurred to you?”
“It is not good news. …It was the men of Hwa who, the time before, drew the Seo House’s youngest son in and contrived a scheme. It came to me that they had handled a sorcery that worked upon a Specter Realm Gate.”

It was information dangerous enough merely to speak aloud, and he had meant to keep it to himself, that it might not spread.
But if the scheme of those men were being brought to bear from yet another quarter, then rather than weighing this and that, it was best to lay it all out and consult with the highest authority he knew.

“It seems it began with a faction calling themselves the radicals of Hwa’s Onmyo Bureau, who pursued a sorcery that would produce an effect similar to the Gatekeeper’s Brand. Of course, it is said the matter was buried along the way…”
“Hm. I, too, fearful of what further mischief they might work, made a particular study of the Wae who had entered Aeshin after that incident, but nothing in particular came up, I must say.”

‘In place of that, I came across this while moving about here,’ Yun Jinseong said, and drew a scrap of cloth from his breast.
It was a cloth on which a strange pattern had been carved.

“When we are out of here, I had thought to take this as material and ask the Master to perform a divination. If Wae comes up, the matter becomes simple.”
“No, this is… ah.”

As he was about to say something while inspecting the pattern in detail, blood streamed in a thin line from Shin Hweein’s nose.

“Shin Hae!”

Catching sight of the blood dripping in drops beneath the mask, Ham Seoyeon paled and dove in to take hold of him.
It was an exceedingly timely measure.
Because the very next instant, he lost consciousness.

— Phew, just in time. I’m glad my measure wasn’t too late.

The field of vision went dark, then bright again, and there he was inside the dream-world.
Watching Lyl breathe a sigh of relief before his eyes, Shin Hweein blinked once, twice.

“Don’t tell me I’m dead?”

— Aw, as if you’d really die. Instead, that wretched fox-of-flame’s so-called ‘Three-Year Pact’ will have broken, won’t it?

“From the mere sight of one pattern, the Three-Year Pact—”

— And that’s why I stopped it! Even if it meant overstepping a little!

Beaming like one who could not bear to watch her beloved fall straight into the kumiho’s hands, Lyl preened.

“And how did you know?”

— Because it’s night!

“That is no answer at all…”

He found it a little unsettling, but he could not refuse to acknowledge the merit of what she had done.
And so, while she pressed her head against him, he praised her dutifully and asked,

“What in heaven’s name was that pattern? I had never seen its like.”

— In truth, it was not your first time. Knowing full well that you’d suffer just as you are now if you saw it, I interfered in advance and hid it away. That’s all.

“What do you mean by— ah.”

Shin Hweein, at the sight of three rather familiar severed heads stacking themselves one atop another in Lyl’s palm, let out a low groan.
The heads of those Hwa sorcerers, which he had been meaning to send on to Makoto soon but had been keeping in reserve, his own skill not yet sufficient to draw out all their information…

“Then that means, surely.”

— Yes. There is another organization that absorbed those who broke off from the radicals of the Onmyo Bureau. …And it is, in all likelihood, a worldwide organization.

Even as he groaned at information he was hard pressed to bear in his present state, Shin Hweein lowered himself cross-legged on the spot and beckoned to Lyl.

“I am content to pay a price, tell me in detail. And if there is, on top of that, a sorcery that can resolve the situation of the Specter Realm Gate, all the better.”

— Hoho, tonight’s date is going to run long.

With a bewitching smile, Lyl came and sat beside him and leaned her shoulder against his.

— But don’t worry, once you cross back over, it’ll be only an instant.

“It had better be.”

To this craven dream-demon, emboldened beyond her usual measure because she held a hostage, he gave no resistance, only offered his shoulder, and let out another sigh.